Daily Columnist

I’m convinced. The ticket office is out to get us students who are basketball fans. Why do I think this? Well, look at the facts and compare what was to what is. Last year, we got a good deal. We got to see 14 games, including exhibitions, for $70. We saw Kansas come to town as well as our intrastate rival, Drake. Plus, we had seats that rotated from the floor to the balcony. But this year we are getting screwed.

We get 12 games and have to pay $72. Though we get to see Iowa, the match is conveniently scheduled during finals week. We don’t get to see the exhibition contests, and we don’t get to see Northern Iowa. And thanks to something called the “dual sports package,” we basketball fans who didn’t get our tickets at 8:00 on Monday morning are stuck in the balcony all season long. Hey, I got my tickets at 9 a.m. and still couldn’t get lower- level seats. Also, they can’t even deliver the tickets on time. We were supposed to get them Monday, but now we have to wait until the day before the first game for tickets.

The first game for the Cyclones is UNI. However, our first student ticket is for Arkansas Pine-Bluff. No offense to the Golden Lions, but UNI is going to be an interesting game because they won quite a few games last year, and APB is not a particularly good team. Their conference is the Southwestern Athletic, and I’d wager the Missouri Valley, especially with Illinois State, is pretty darned good.

Dig a little deeper, and you become more perplexed. Adam Gold worked out a deal last year, or so I thought, to have the athletic department sell single-game tickets at one-third of the previous price. Last year they cost 15 bucks, so now it should be five bucks. Hey, I pay more per game for a season ticket this year, and I know that single-game tickets don’t cost $5 for students.

And guess what? This comes in the midst of a student fee increase that is going toward the athletic department. I don’t mind that because it is going to save non-revenue sports. But last spring we found out that we had extra money, $4.1 million to be exact. Yet, we still raise ticket prices! Why? Why are we doing this? We are likely to have a lot of extra money once again from landing Nebraska and K-State in the bowl alliance and gaining a lot of TV money from ESPN’s basketball telecasts and FoxSportsNet’s football telecasts. So there seems no need for extra moo-lah from student spectators.

Students already pay nearly $20 via fees, and when we buy tickets, we contribute even more. The only reason I can figure is greed. They know they can fill up Hilton anyway, so I guess they think that they can sacrifice student privileges for big donors.

To be fair, I called the ticket office to ask for some explanation. According to Dave Crum, ticket manager, the increase came from the business office’s five-year budget. The dropping of the exhibition games was a consequence of some student opinions, while the unavailability of the lower level was due to the dual sports package. However, the same number of lower-level seats was offered.

This answers some of my questions but leaves many unanswered. Why couldn’t the business office find a way to incorporate the $4.1 million in unexpected revenue in a way that stabilizes ticket prices (or better yet, reduces costs)? Why can’t everybody rotate between balcony and floor/parquet rather than only giving the floor to alumni and donors who sit on their hands the entire game?

Explain that to me and I’ll be happy. Go Cyclones!

Jayadev Athreya is a sophomore in mathematics from Ames.